


13th Night: Malvolio's Revenge

by aTableofGreen



Category: Shakespeare - Fandom, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Horror, Murder, Revenge, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3802597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aTableofGreen/pseuds/aTableofGreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He promised revenge on the whole pack of them and now not wind nor rain can stop him. On this, the 451st anniversary of his creator's birth, vengeance comes cross-gartered with a smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	13th Night: Malvolio's Revenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rune_Vanyarin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rune_Vanyarin/gifts).



Sir Toby stumbled mindlessly out of the pub into the pale light of a flickering streetlamp. His laughter echoed down the deserted edges of the early morning and dissipated into hollow silence. In his current state, he cared little for the absent audience, or even the cause of his laughter at this point. With one chubby hand, he grabbed hold of the lamp post and attempted to swing around it. He succeeded only in launching himself onto the curb, his landing emphatically punctuated with something between a hiccup and a belch. Holding his nose just inches from the gutter, Toby began to giggle. After a few moments of sputtering laughter, the giggles wavered in and out of unintelligible song.

“S’randrew!” He suddenly slurred indignantly into the sewer-grate, his brow sternly knitted. “S’randrew bring me my sack! You dog! Come sing a song with me, you cur!” He waved a stubby arm ineffectually around in the air before letting it fall back across the sidewalk. The intoxicated lug was on his way out of consciousness when he realized his hand had landed on something decidedly not pavement. Perplexed, Toby grasped the object in his fist and scrambled up off the ground. It was a crumpled piece of paper, stained with dirt and rainwater at the edges, but thick along the creases. Sir Toby supported himself against the lamppost as he fumbled to flatten the page. It took a few tries to get it right side up, but the drunkard eventually found himself squinting at a series of seemingly random magazine cutouts glued to an otherwise blank sheet of paper. As he peered intently through his drunken haze, the symbols began to float into focus. With a great deal of concentration, the blotches of garish yellow, red, and black formed into letters and Toby’s hands began to quiver. He called out for Andrew again, this time with a degree more urgency, but to no avail. The only answer from the vacant night air was a sudden rustle of leaves as a crow took flight from a nearby tree. Toby jolted at the sound and glanced frantically in all directions. He was motionless in the silence for a moment. Then, from far off down the street, the silence was broken by the distant sound of footsteps.

The footfalls slowly getting closer over Toby’s shoulder were not those of Sir Andrew. Without turning to check, Toby bolted. Panting and flailing, the exhausted man fled as far as his legs would carry him before daring to look back. When he was far enough out that he could no longer hear the steps of the man behind him, Toby cautiously turned around. In the distance, he could see the tall, slender outline of a figure standing in the middle of the street. The features were indistinguishable save a backlit silhouette against the single flickering streetlamp. Toby flinched as the figure took a single step forward. Only one side of the ominous man stood illuminated in the dying light and it wasn’t the gleam of the knife in his hand which sent Toby’s heart to the pit of his stomach. Beneath the tattered and muddy remnants of once sleek dress pants, a black garter band dangling dejectedly to one side, Toby could just make out the sickening hue of a bright yellow stocking.

___

Feste and Sir Andrew emerged from the bar in boisterous atonal song. Andrew slung his arm haphazardly around Feste’s shoulders in a feeble attempt to keep upright. Feste rolled his eyes and secured an arm around the tall man’s flimsy waist.  
“And they call me the fool,” he muttered to himself. “Come on, you pale faced loon. Let’s go find Toby.” He hoisted the drooping drunkard up against his hip and lightly smacked his face. “How is it that, even this wasted, you’ve still got no color in your cheeks? People are gonna think I took a feverish man from bed to accompany me at the bar.” With great concentration, Andrew swayed his head back and forth before swiveling it around to look Feste hard in the eye.  
“Aha!” he declared odoriferously into Feste’s face, thrusting a finger into the air emphatically. “There you are wrong! For ‘tis the very paleness of my cheek which drives me to drink! I think.” He knitted his brow and glanced around without removing the tip of his nose from that of his patient friend. Feste sighed. “‘Tis in the sack I seek to rack my cheek with red!” he shouted. With that, Andrew righted himself against Feste’s shoulders, the momentum of which sent him twirling into the street.

“Andrew! Get back here! We just need to make sure Toby made it back safely and I’m not about to lose track of you in the process.” Feste stepped out into the street after him, but stopped short at the sight of a damp letter fluttering against the sewer grate. “Andrew,” he began slowly, his eyes widening as he registered the implications of the words on the page. In jagged scraps torn from magazines by the hands of a man notoriously wronged, the message read clear: “WITH BLOODIED STROKE MY HAND DOTH GORE. M, T, A, F DOTH SWAY MY KNIFE.”

“Andrew!” Feste shouted in desperation as the thin man spun in circles farther down the street. “Andrew! We need to get out of here! Now!” Feste bolted after his friend, glancing wildly about the deserted street in search of the man he knew lurked behind the letter. In the dark, he stumbled and fell. Scrambling to get up again, Feste realized the dampness coating his hands and seeping into his shirt was not rainwater. A frantic scream escaped his lips as he registered what it was that he had tripped over in the street. Sir Toby’s face was frozen in a disfigured gawk of terror. His shirt had been torn open to expose his chest. In thick strokes still oozing blood, Toby’s fatal wounds spelled out his murderer’s self-claimed prerogative; “AMEND.”

Before he could process the scene before him, Feste was spurred out of his shock by a distant scream. The adrenaline pumping through his veins deadened the senses so that the sound of his pounding heart drowned out Feste’s own voice inside his head and he wasn’t sure if the scream he’d heard mightn’t have been his own. He stumbled down the street on ragged and bleeding legs, Toby’s blood dripping from his shaking fingertips. In the distance, he could just make out two figures under a streetlamp. Fighting against the drag of his twisted ankle and bloodied knees, Feste limped forward as quickly as he could. Through his shredded vocal chords, he tried to call out for Andrew again, but all he could hear was the rapid thrum of his terrified heart.

One figure knelt under the looming gaze the other, his hands raised before him in a pathetic plea for his life. The blade of the knife glinted in the lamplight as Malvolio turned it in his hands. Andrew’s sobs shuddered down the empty street as Feste looked on, helpless. Raising the blade, the deranged man chuckled mercilessly and answered with a twitch, “Ay, ay. I care not for good life.” In a single motion, Malvolio brought the blade down on his victim, burying it to the hilt in Andrew’s throat. Feste tried in vain to force his gaze away as the madman pulled the knife back out. Blood sprayed through the air and across Malvolio’s face and body. Great red blotches mixed into horrible shades of orange against the murderer’s bright yellow stockings. As Andrew’s body shuddered and fell to the ground, Feste turned to run.

His footfalls pounded the pavement as memories of Malvolio’s grimy face sobbing in the darkness flashed before his eyes. With every tormented pulse of his blood, the eyes of his pursuer stared accusing in his mind’s eye, once framed by dirt and tears, now covered in blood. Feste squeezed his own eyes shut to try to drive the guilt from his memory, but the visions of Toby and Andrew’s bodies remained burned into his mind. Feste aimed for an alley beside the bar and dove behind the bins. With his back flat against the cold bricks, the traumatized man closed his eyes again and tried to slow his erratic breathing. After a few deep breaths, he listened for Malvolio’s footsteps down the street. There was no sound save the gradually increasing patter of rain. Slowly, cautiously, Feste stepped forward off the wall and leaned his head to glance down the street. Empty. He wasn’t sure if the chill he felt down his spine was the manifestation of his own fear or merely the wind and the rain, but as the drops fell harder he found it more difficult to listen for his assailant.

As he strained to hear anything but the storm, a warm breath suddenly fell on the nape of his neck. Feste froze. A harsh and ragged voice slowly whispered two words against his ear.

“Notorious. Wrong.”

Feste’s back arched as Malvolio grabbed a fistful of hair and thrust the knife between shoulder blades. The blood trickled down the hilt into the killer’s hands as Feste’s breathing hitched and gurgled. Malvolio relished his last victim’s final moments, revenged at long last on the souls he vowed never to forgive.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I never thought I'd write a Shakespeare fanfic, much less make use of the graphic violence and major character death warnings! This is a Shakespeare Birthday Exchange gift for the wonderful runecestershire based on his title prompt. As painful as it was killing off my favorite drunkards, I really did enjoy writing this piece. Thank you for the excellent prompt and I do hope it lives up to your expectations! Happy 451st!


End file.
